Just for the sake of convenience I'll let myself be called a fan of Hetalia, but it's actually the fandom and fanmade works that are the fun part of this series. First off, let me tell you that this series is not for the easily offended, not at all. And be warned that the dub is even more offensive than the original material, since Funimation chose to go the Gag Dub route and ended up with a lot of Holocaust jokes that just rub me the wrong way. There's no such thing in the original Japanese (especially in the original strips, where Germany is shown to be resentful of Hitler), and I'm most informed about the strips, so my review will be for those.
My main complaint about Hetalia isn't that the series is OFFENSIVE, but that it is often DULL. Quite a few of the strips are just silly fluff or the artist being a goof, which, while nice now and then, can get repetitive. That being said, there's a few genuinely funny moments. Not to mention some surprisingly serious and dramatic ones, which run the gamut to melodramatic (Cleaning out the Storage) to genuinely harrowing (Bloody Sunday). So the series itself is a mixed bag: sometimes you'll find something good, and sometimes you'll just find something unremarkable.
The fandom is where the real action's at. On one end of the spectrum, you've got a bunch of immature fangirls, but the same can be said for any popular series. The other side of the Hetalia fandom can actually be surprisingly insightful and clever. Most fanworks of the latter revolve around historical events and culture, and the best give these all the respect they deserve. Check the Fanfic Recs page for more: it's here where you'll find some gems.
Hetalia isn't purely historical by any means, but the concept of it is a great launching pad to further historical research. The funner parts of the fandom have this in mind, so if you can get past the principle of the series and its moe, it's actually not too shabby.
(Mostly) Silly series, "interesting" fanbase
Just for the sake of convenience I'll let myself be called a fan of Hetalia, but it's actually the fandom and fanmade works that are the fun part of this series. First off, let me tell you that this series is not for the easily offended, not at all. And be warned that the dub is even more offensive than the original material, since Funimation chose to go the Gag Dub route and ended up with a lot of Holocaust jokes that just rub me the wrong way. There's no such thing in the original Japanese (especially in the original strips, where Germany is shown to be resentful of Hitler), and I'm most informed about the strips, so my review will be for those.
My main complaint about Hetalia isn't that the series is OFFENSIVE, but that it is often DULL. Quite a few of the strips are just silly fluff or the artist being a goof, which, while nice now and then, can get repetitive. That being said, there's a few genuinely funny moments. Not to mention some surprisingly serious and dramatic ones, which run the gamut to melodramatic (Cleaning out the Storage) to genuinely harrowing (Bloody Sunday). So the series itself is a mixed bag: sometimes you'll find something good, and sometimes you'll just find something unremarkable.
The fandom is where the real action's at. On one end of the spectrum, you've got a bunch of immature fangirls, but the same can be said for any popular series. The other side of the Hetalia fandom can actually be surprisingly insightful and clever. Most fanworks of the latter revolve around historical events and culture, and the best give these all the respect they deserve. Check the Fanfic Recs page for more: it's here where you'll find some gems.
Hetalia isn't purely historical by any means, but the concept of it is a great launching pad to further historical research. The funner parts of the fandom have this in mind, so if you can get past the principle of the series and its moe, it's actually not too shabby.
Series gets 3/5, fandom gets 4/5.